System for providing secondary credit protection for life and annuity policies, tracking unpaid claims

Title: System for providing secondary credit protection for life and annuity policies, tracking unpaid claims.Abstract: A method for providing insurance in a distributed computing network having a server and a plurality of clients including the steps of determining a corporate bond price associated with a corporate bond of a holding company in the server, determining an interpolated swap rate for the bond based on the corporate bond price and premium in the server, determining a present weighted value of premiums associated with the corporate bond in the server, determining an overcollateralization ratio of the holding company in the server, determining implied asset volatility for the corporate bond in the server, determining an implied put price for the corporate bond and a CDS premium for the insurance company in the server, and offering a secondary credit protection product for users associated with the clients. ...

BACKGROUND

The present disclosure generally relates to a method and system for providing secondary credit protection for life and annuity policies. The methods and systems give the policyholder the ability to hedge a potential default of payment of the original issuing life insurance or annuity provider at term.

2. Background

Recently in the United States, a distressed economic environment has been prevalent. The largest insurer, American International Group, Inc. (AIG) received bailout money from the U.S. government to meet increased collateral obligations. Such events underline the incapacity of holding companies to deal with the current challenging credit market environment independently. There is in fact no measure as of now to determine if AIG is financially sound nor is there any means to evaluate policyholders' risk and exposure to AIG. Moreover, many major life insurance companies appear on unsure financial footing with the threat of collapse. Although the policies could be transferred to another life insurance company, there is no guarantee for the policyholder that this might actually be the case, not mentioning the potential delays of payment if collapse and/or transfer does occur.

No instrument currently exists nor is traded on the market that measures policyholders' credit risk and exposure to life operating companies and holding companies failure to pay death benefits. Only derivative instruments that evaluate debt and equity holders' risk currently exist. No credit protection instrument exists that covers the joint event of paying upon death of policyholder and prior default of the related insurer, or in the case of an annuity, the joint event of annuity payout date and prior default of the annuity issuer.

SUMMARY

There is no way for a policyholder to hedge the risk against policy issuers' default, which has risen multiple-fold for policyholders in the years 2008 and 2009. The credit risk of default of policy issuers can be gauged by calculating the implied 30 year credit default swap (CDS) premium on the life insurance company, which is usually a subsidiary of a holding company whose debt is traded on the market. By looking at the difference of leverage between the holding company and the life insurance company, the credit CDS premium of the life insurance company can be implied. For example, Prudential Life Insurance Company went from 72 bps at the end of 2007 to over 200 bps in 2009.

In addition to life insurance, there are many life contingent risks in deferred annuities such as fixed and variable annuities for which the present technology would be applicable. For example, many such annuities provide what are known as Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefits (“GMDB”), which are benefits at the death of the policyholder which are based upon a contract specification that can include increases based upon fixed interest rates, annual increases in market returns and the like. The GMDB would then amount to a considerable component of the annuity contract. Because the GMDB are all obligations of the life insurer's general account, the GMDB are backed only by the general financial strength of the life insurers and therefore present the same default risk bearing issues involved for life insurance.

In view of the above, a need is recognized for new methods and systems to provide life and annuity policyholders the ability to hedge issuing policy life insurance companies' credit risk. A need is also recognized for this hedge to be realizable at low cost, easy to administer, purchase and explainable to retail policyholders.

The present disclosure is directed to a subject technology including an insurance contract which provides secondary credit protection. The benefits can be targeted in various ways. In one embodiment, a separate guarantor model utilizes a third party insurance company, bank, investment bank, clearinghouse or the like in which policies may be contracted. In another embodiment, a guarantor underwrites a rider on the original policy which, for an additional premium, provides credit protection by a highly rated third party. In still another embodiment, the environment 10 includes a specifically designed CDS, over-the-counter (“OTC”) or exchange, which (i) pays out upon life insurance company default on policyholder (at that part of the capital structure) and (ii) pays out only upon the death of the holder in the case of life insurance or annuity pay date in the case of an annuity.

A benefit of the subject technology is for the policyholders to practically remove all credit risk from their life insurance or annuity policies at minimal costs. The subject technology can offer a term credit hedge as well that would be in effect for a limited period of time such as 10, 15, 20 or 30 years, to lower even further the cost to the policyholder. The calculation of the premium utilizes a shorter term and the relevant NLG Policy Premium for the term of the policy chosen. For example, the premium could be $805, $1,085, $1,425, $2,615 per $1 MM of 10 year, 15 year, 20 year and 30 year policies respectively. The contracts could be turned into permanent at term if the policyholder wants to make the contract permanent, the contract premium being re-priced at the time of being made permanent.

It should be appreciated that the subject technology can be implemented and utilized in numerous ways, including without limitation as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, a method for applications now known and later developed or a computer readable medium. These and other unique features of the system disclosed herein will become more readily apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that those having ordinary skill in the art to which the disclosed systems and methods appertains will more readily understand how to make and use the same, reference may be had to the following drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an environment for a secondary credit protection system in accordance with the subject disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of server for a secondary credit protection system implemented in accordance with the subject disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a process performed by the secondary credit protection system of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a spreadsheet display including financial information for two exemplary companies in the process of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5A is a top portion of a table containing exemplary data for an example of incorporating the state guarantees into the process of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5B is a bottom portion of the table of FIG. 5A.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The subject technology overcomes many of the prior art problems associated with secondary credit protection for life and annuity policies. The advantages, and other features of the systems and methods disclosed herein, will become more readily apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art from the following detailed description of certain preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the drawings which set forth representative embodiments of the present invention and wherein like reference numerals identify similar structural elements.

Herein a computer or server is one or more digital data processing devices used in connection with various embodiments of the invention. Such a device generally can be a personal computer, computer workstation (e.g., Sun, HP), laptop computer, tablet computer, server computer, mainframe computer, handheld device (e.g., personal digital assistant, Pocket PC, cellular telephone, etc.), information appliance, printed circuit board with components or any other type of generic or special-purpose, processor-controlled device capable of receiving, processing, displaying, and/or transmitting digital data. A typical computer includes random access memory (RAM), mechanisms and structures for performing I/O operations, a storage medium such as a magnetic hard disk drive(s), and an operating system (e.g., software) for execution on the central processing unit. The computer also has input and output devices such as a keyboard and monitor, respectively.

A processor generally is logic circuitry that responds to and processes instructions that drive a computer and can include, without limitation, a central processing unit, an arithmetic logic unit, an application specific integrated circuit, a task engine, and/or any combinations, arrangements, or multiples thereof. Software or code generally refers to computer instructions which, when executed on one or more digital data processing devices, cause interactions with operating parameters, sequence data/parameters, database entries, network connection parameters/data, variables, constants, software libraries, and/or any other elements needed for the proper execution of the instructions, within an execution environment in memory of the digital data processing device(s).

A module is a functional aspect, which may include software and/or hardware. Typically, a module encompasses the necessary components to accomplish a task. It is envisioned that the same hardware could implement a plurality of modules and portions of such hardware being available as needed to accomplish the task. Those of ordinary skill will recognize that the software and various processes discussed herein are merely exemplary of the functionality performed by the disclosed technology and thus such processes and/or their equivalents may be implemented in commercial embodiments in various combinations without materially affecting the operation of the disclosed technology.

Referring now to the FIG. 1, there is a schematic block diagram of an environment 10 with a secondary credit protection system embodying and implementing the methodology of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, the secondary credit protection system determines: a corporate bond price associated with a corporate bond of the holding company; an interpolated swap rate for the bond based on the corporate bond price and premium; a present weighted value of premiums associated with the corporate bond; an overcollateralization ratio of the holding company; implied asset volatility for the corporate bond; and an implied put price for the corporate bond and a CDS premium for the insurance company. In another embodiment, the secondary credit protection system performs a method that determines: a corporate bond price associated with a corporate bond of a holding company in the server; an interpolated swap rate for the bond based on the corporate bond price and premium in the server; a present weighted value of premiums associated with the corporate bond in the server; an overcollateralization ratio of the holding company in the server; implied asset volatility for the corporate bond in the server; and an implied put price for the corporate bond and a CDS premium for the insurance company in the server to offer a secondary credit protection product for users associated with the clients.

The secondary credit protection system is user-interactive and self-contained so that users need not leave venture to another address within a distributed computing network 12 to access a various information. The following discussion describes the structure of such an environment 10 but further discussion of the application programs and modules that embody the methodology of the present invention is described elsewhere herein.

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20120426|20120101853|system for providing secondary credit protection for life and annuity policies, tracking unpaid claims|A method for providing insurance in a distributed computing network having a server and a plurality of clients including the steps of determining a corporate bond price associated with a corporate bond of a holding company in the server, determining an interpolated swap rate for the bond based on the |